Thursday, January 29, 2009

Today marks the release of VOCALOID 2 CV03, Megurine Luka (巡音ルカ). Nico Nico Douga is the prime location for users to upload their newly-created songs. Luka is still fresh out of the box for most users but due to the ability to simply plug in extra voices into the base VOCALOID 2 software, it's conceivable users have had time to make the songs before her voice was actually released (and of course, release new versions of older and popular songs using Luka's voice of course). Who wouldn't like to hear a new version of Saihate, Tori no Uta, Meltdown, or even Ievan Polkka?

Luka is the first VOCALOID to have 2 true voice banks for Japanese and English. I've yet to hear her English but a German song did pop up. Keep in mind Luka does indeed have more flexibility but is still bound by VOCALOID 2 restrictions. Although her voice is fresh, cool, and clean, she can only be as good as the creator makes her to be. It's still under debate among the fans what her "item" will be. Hatsune Miku has the leek/negi, Rin and Len have banana and orange, Kaito has ice cream, Meiko has her booze, Gakupo his eggplant. Currently the top contenders for Luka seem to be the tuna (maguro, a pun on her name), meat, and a whip (to meet her "cool" dominating personality). I personally have grown accustomed to the tuna.

There has not been much publicity around the release on English websites (in fact I believe I'm one of the first to cover this), so all I have to go by is what I see on Nico Nico Douga. Here's the tag linking to the newest-updated songs by Luka:

I look forward to seeing the newest releases pop up throughout the week, it was ridiculous enough on Pixiv when her character artwork was released. There's already a few thousand fanarts of her, I'll share a few of the many I've collected to celebrate this day: